The Super Mario Bros. Movie

There’s no doubt that the new box-office champ is “The Super Mario Bros. Movie,” a computer-animated comedy adventure. Based on the popular video game, this family-friendly film has redeemed the Nintendo franchise’s reputation after its catastrophic 1993 live-action movie adaptation.

Scripted by Matthew Fogel and directed by Aaron Horvath and Michael Jelenic, it’s the hectic origin story for mustached Mario (voiced by Chris Pratt) and his younger brother Luigi (voiced by Charlie Day). They’re New York plumbers who decide to start their own business, even as they’re mocked by their former boss, Spike (voiced by Sebastian Maniscalco).

At first. they’re ridiculed for making a television commercial in which they speak with fake Italian accents, but then they descend into the sewer in an attempt fix a broken water main beneath the streets of Brooklyn.

Suddenly, timid Luigi tumbles down a mysterious pipe and disappears. Immediately, Mario dives in after him, only to discover he’s arrived in the magical Mushroom Kingdom.

Befriended by Toad (voiced by Keegan Michael-Kay), Mario is determined to rescue Luigi from the Dark Lands, where he’s in the clutches of evil, fire-breathing Bowser (voiced by Jack Black), the ferocious, gap-toothed turtle leader of the Koopas, who plan to conquer the entire Mushroom Kingdom.

So Mario teams up with the Kingdom’s Princess Peach (voiced by Anya Taylor-Joy) — which infuriates lovesick Bowser, who is utterly infatuated with her — and then Mario must face off against Donkey Kong (voiced by Seth Rogen), cheered on by his dad, and Cranky Kong (voiced by Fred Armisen).

It all adds up to 90 minutes of spirited fun, particularly for gamers who can spot the Nintendo-referencing Easter eggs placed for their psychedelic enjoyment. As Mario says, “Let’s-a-go!”

FYI: Universal Studios’ theme parks’ ‘Super Nintendo World’ is a whopping triumph with early entry tickets sold out every day since it opened on Feb. 17. And the telephone number blasted in Mario and Luigi’s TV commercial is (917) 555-0185; ‘917’ is the area code for New York City’s five boroughs, while ‘555’ is a famous fictional number used for many TV commercials.

Ghosted

First, let’s define the term “Ghosted.” In social media terms, “ghosting” is deliberately ignoring someone and “ghosted” is being ignored, meaning that whatever relationship you had — or think you had — is over.

So when Cole (Chris Evans) and Sadie (Ana de Armas) ‘meet cute’ at a suburban Washington D.C. Farmer’s Market, they decide to spend the day — and night — together, causing him to think they’ve clicked as a couple. But then, when she doesn’t respond to his fervent texts and emojis, his sister (Lizze Broadway) tells him he’s been ghosted.

Unwilling to accept that, Cole figures out that she’s in London, since he left his trackable asthma inhaler in her backpack. So he impulsively flies there in hot, romantic pursuit, only to discover she’s a ruthless CIA operative on the trail of an unscrupulous French arms dealer (Adrien Brody) about to sell a top-secret biomedical weapon known as Aztec.

Working from a bland ‘role reversal’ script by Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick (“Deadpool”), Chris McKenna and Erik Sommers (“Spider-Man”), director Dexter Fletcher (“Rocketman”) tries to combine comedy with globe-hopping adventure as Sadie the Spy repeatedly rescues bumbling, bewildered Cole, the farmer-agricultural historian, whom his dad (Tate Donovan) calls “Slaw.”

A classic Hollywood screwball comedy features couples who squabble before they realize they really adore one another. But here, much of the bickering and bantering falls flat, despite surprise cameos from Ryan Reynolds and Sebastian Stan.

There’s simply too little chemistry between Marvel’s hunky “Captain America” Chris Evans and Ana de Armas, who proved she can pack a punch in “No Time to Die” and “The Gray Man.” Even the climactic fight scene atop Atlanta’s rotating Polaris restaurant seems more confusing than compelling.

65

“Before the advent of time — in the infinity of space — a visitor crash landed on Earth.” That’s the introduction to the sci-fi action adventure “65,” named because dinosaurs roamed the Earth 65 million years ago.

The story begins as Mills (Adam Driver), an astronaut, bids farewell to his wife and very sick daughter. To pay for her medical care, he has agreed to a two-year mission which goes awry when an asteroid shower damages his spaceship, forcing him to crash land on a mysterious planet inhabited by prehistoric creatures.

Mills roams around for a while, averting ravenous predators, but before he’s reduced to talking to a Wilson volley ball — like Tom Hanks in “Cast Away” — he finds another survivor, a little girl named Koa (Ariana Greenblatt), who was a passenger on his ship and doesn’t speak English. Obviously, she reminds him of the daughter he left behind.

Together, they’re determined to find the escape pod that’s somewhere in the spaceship’s strewn wreckage, and Koa is savvy enough to save Mills from certain death when he’s trapped in quicksand.

Created and directed by the screenwriting team of Scott Beck and Bryan Woods (“A Quiet Place”), it strives for suspense but utilizes too many jump scares, playing like the kind of grade B creature feature that used to be drive-in theater fare. But — since it reportedly cost $91 million — it’s not a cheapo production.

Cinematographer Salvatore Totino takes full advantage of location filming in Kisatchie National Forest in Louisiana and several forests in Oregon. But all too often it evokes memories of far-better “Jurassic Park” scenes, like spying a gigantic footprint in the mud and having a ferocious Tyrannosaurs Rex in hot pursuit as a massive meteor hurtles toward Earth.